Beni Mora: Oriental Suite

“If it had been played in Paris rather than London,” wrote Holst’s friend Vaughan Williams, “it would have given its composer a European reputation, and played in Italy would probably have caused a riot.” Beni Mora is one of the most intriguing of Holst’s creative engagements with the music and thought of non-European cultures. But at the time he wrote it, in 1910, he was still a marginal name in British music, and even London audiences could still be resistant to un-sentimentalised evocations of “exotic” places and sounds. A few lone voices hailed the premiere in 1912, but some of the audience hissed in protest. Holst wrote Beni Mora after what turned out to be a highly therapeutic holiday in Algeria. (He’d been suffering more than usual with neuritis and depression.) While there he was mesmerised by a flautist in the street repeating the same phrase for around two hours, and from this the remarkable finale, “In the Street of the Ouled Naïls”, was born. Dance and chant figures surround a repeated flute motif in music that has been compared to modern minimalism. It builds to a climax, then falls back again, yet the flute phrase remains unchanging, defying the purpose-driven thinking of so much Western classical music at the time. The other two movements are colourful and atmospheric, but it is the finale that stands out, and even today its originality can come as an exhilarating, joyous surprise.